266 SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 
opening. At tlie bottom of the pan is placed a 1 : 1000 solution of sub- 
limate forming a layer about 2 cm. high. In each corner of the trough 
is placed a cube made of some material which is unacted on by water or 
mercury (side of cube about 4 cm.). On these four cubes a glass plate 
rests, and the plates or capsules are placed on this. They may be put 
upon each other or near together, though it is advisable that they should 
be separated by strips of glass plate, r 
Manual of Microscopical Technique.* — Herr 0. Bachmann has 
published the second edition of his handbook, which will, no doubt, be 
found useful. Whether there are not now in English manuals of various 
sizes and degrees of merit which will make the work unnecessary to the 
English microscopist is another question. 
Piersol’s Histology.! — This is stated to be the only American manual 
of histology that has yet been published to meet the requirements of 
modern methods of teaching. One great point appears to be the large 
number of original figures, and another the inclusion of sufficient 
embryology for medical students. 
Cl) CoUecting Objects, including Culture Processes. 
Quadrangular Culture-Capsules.J — Dr. M. Lunkewicz uses quad- 
rangular capsules for cultivation purposes, the sides being luted on with 
Leyboldt’s cement, the composition of which is kept secret. This cement 
answers quite well and is fireproof at 200°. Capsules of this form have 
many advantages over the ordinary circular capsules with their uneven 
bottom ; thus the enumeration of the colonies is more easily made either 
with the counter or by having the bottom of the capsule divided into 
squares ; the distribution of the medium and of the colonies is much 
more regular, and as the lid and the bottom are exactly parallel and only 
a short distance — 1 cm. — apart, the growths may be examined with Zeiss 
objectives a 3 and A. 
Cold Stage. § — Dr. M. Lunkewicz states that in Tiflis, where the 
summer temperature is often 30°-35° R. in the shade, examination of 
gelatin cultures is difficult unless precautions be taken for preventing 
the liquefaction of the gelatin. The device he has adopted is to place 
the capsule, Ac., to be examined on a cold stage. This is nothing more 
than a glass box, the sides of which are parallel, and is somewhat larger 
than the hot stage. At one end ice-water flows in and at the other 
flows out. 
Behrendsen’s Steam Sterilizer. || — Herr Behrendsen’s apparatus is 
chiefly intended for the sterilization or disinfection of surgical dressings 
and instruments. It consists of an ordinary cylindrical boiler and of 
the receiver which fits inside ; the latter is of the same shape, but not 
of the same size. Both are closed by the same lid. The steam from 
* ‘ Leitfaden zur Anfertigung mikroskopischer Dauerpr'aparate,’ Munich and 
Leipzig, 1893, 8vo, 332 pp., 101 figs. 
t ‘ Text-book of Normal Histology,’ by G. A. Piersol, Philadelphia, 1893, 8vo, 
439 pp. and 409 figs. 
X Centralbl. f. Bakteriol. u. Parasitenk., xv. (1894) pp. 42-3. § Tom. cit., p. 44. 
|| Deutsch. Med. Wocheuschr., 1893, Nos. 28 and 29. See Centralbl. f. Bak- 
teriol. u. Parasitenk., xiv. (1893) p. 670. 
